Tooth And Arrow
by kusegoto
Summary: The relationship between life and death. Single chapter pieces about characters & their relationship with the Kindred.
1. berserker

most run from them.

most die with teeth in their ankles and arrows in their backs.

most do not _chase them_.

( _what does the northern man seek, little lamb?_ )

it is in due time all shall meet them - paths begin, and paths end. they have met those who sought their end - cups of poison, stolen breath, rivers of red.

when they greet them, they speak to the lamb. her voice is soft, ashen, woolen. she asks how one can so eagerly seek the end.

( _a purposeless purpose._ )

those who die by hand - not arrow, not teeth - do not seek it violently, carving meat and bone to find the right corpse to die in. snow, and ice, and grey, sleet stone - covered in blood. the northern man's axes are sharp, and can tell a different story in every angle of light.

this beast comes from an icy basin in the north. it is rumoured to not be real. they are familiar with rumours with contrary.

the northern man has other men with him. they have seen these men, just as they have seen their leader. they will meet many of these men today, personally, and they will all feed the wolf's hungry maw.

they dance outside the vision of these men. there is acid on the tongue of the beast they draw from the water. if it is killed, its scales can be sold for tools. its eyes can be frozen in true ice for a prize.

the acid burns the northern man when he charges and swings. it leaves a mark on his left arm. he grins, and believes this will be the way he dies.

( _burnt, though not by flame._ )

( _cook him and eat him!_ )

each soul finds itself marked. each soul is taken, carried, devoured. she whispers a song and he feels his own tongue ache.

the northern man is not dead.

he pries his axe from the gill of this creature.

( _how will we chase this one?_ )

( _wolf - we run._ )

the lamb holds an arrow in her strings.

 _i pity him,_ she does not say.

she draws it. she fires. the wind brushes his bearded face, and they will see him again.


	2. rogue mage

a task must end.

some, they shadow. their deeds are marked with a tally, and the end will come where death shall reap. it may take a long time, but they have nothing _but_ time.

those they follow, watch from the crest of the shadows, out of the corner of the eye by the mark of the hunt - are often stubborn.

they spoke to him, once, and then twice. the first time, his skin was still flushed dark and the life in him was more natural than the dirt nations bury their dead in, so unbelievingly _real_ that they both were wary of this being of absolute, undeniable existence.

no mortal should possess such power.

he agreed.

the first rune he found on his own, he pried from the corpse of a man he once loved. at that time, shrouded in the darkness of night, in the crater of a temple destroyed in the conflict, the mage should have been ready for the hunt. no mortal man could withstand an unstable rune's control. he should have been ready.

the carving was clutched in his hand as the lamb watched him. his eyes glowed white. but she saw the colour behind them.

 _i know what i am doing._

( _he is an honest man. for him - an arrow._ )

the second time, he is taller, he is older, and he watches her with the same white stare he had for her a thousand years ago, and tells her he can't go just yet. there are shadows under his eyes, dark purple that matches his unnatural skin so well. he looks physically sharper - in his shoulders, nose, elbows, his jaw if the beard on his face was shaven away. if it was shaven away, the lamb muses, he would look as he did so long ago.

he can't go just yet, and he lowers the muted rune into his pocket, protective sigil bound over it. a little longer.

 _but all things must meet their end, mage._

she told him to run. the same book hanging from his belt from their last meeting rattles in its steel chains when he does.

the wolf does not get to hunt this one.

and neither shall she.

( _for now?_ )

( _for now._ )


	3. deathsinger

even death is mystified by the purpose it may hold.

the shadow isles do not welcome them. they are the end - they are the final road, the end of creation. the answer to a question life does not know how to ask. eternal. they exist as proof of nonexistence; conclusion.

thusly, they cannot exist in a place that defies their truth. it is death they cannot hunt.

( _his song sounds good._ )

they come when they must. when a mortal must choose between the brevity of the lamb or the thrill of the wolf - that is when they split the path between their mark.

why did this one choose a path they did not offer?

( _the singer mistakes melody for substance._ )

it is only in the carved path of the harrowed slaughter that they may reach him. his requiem has a verse from the hymn of the kindred he would sing as a mortal man. they do not forget that.

they pass. their death (true, absolute, final) and his (limitless, juxtaposed, philosophical) cannot linger together for long - the hunt cannot continue when the target writhes in the mist of the isles, because those lands are cursed. the limited mortals who know of the isles, and the even more limited denizens of those isles, believe it to be empowered by death's cold ability.

it is not real death, the kindred believe. it is magic. it can be reversed. karthus has magic no being should possess, but it can be taken from him, as they can a soul.

the single time they spoke with him, in a respite that they cast to hold the balance of truth and faith - they did not question him, and he did not question them.

he remembered them, from his mortal existence. he spoke fondly to them - a fondness only those who fell in love with the mystery of death could possibly hold. he laughed on lungs he did not have with a breath as rotten as thick blood, and asked if they had come to collect him. cull the reaper himself.

( the wolf's teeth ached. )

death can, perhaps, be sought. they do not agree that it can become a purpose, however.

a purpose to anyone but them.


	4. emperor of the sands

in shurima, they are not split from one another. bound together, unsplit and united, they are a single entity, _ansiba._

long ago, when the sun disc drank in the warmth of the sky, they were given offerings of spring water and dried plants brought in from the desert oases, sold by merchants to those who would greet ansiba in the coming days of a loved one predicted to pass. the offerings were left at doorsteps.

today, as legends have twisted into new forms, orated by tongues that do not remember the way the stone was cut, they are mistaken for the local ascended. a being who was blessed by the sun and given the task to shepherd the dead.

( _together again._ )

( _i never left you, wolf._ )

they do not mind. neither stand as tall as the ascended, but they have met them. a curator, a butcher, a magus, an emperor.

the emperor was long considered dead. they did not personally see to his burial - the destruction of the city was hot sand that seared the skin, and they could not be present when history was ripped apart. lamb considers this to be the reason as to why he rose again.

but death is the end.

( a sun behind his head. gold, all over. )

death is the end.

( regal, illustrious, betrayer, saviour. )

death is the end.

( you can pull yourself from the brink and feel the wolf at your ankles, but you are not allowed to claw yourself from the earth and - )

death is the end and yet they did not end him, hold him down and let him die in his own sun. but like his sun, they shadow the emperor, hovering in the echo of his past and the thousand years between burial and revival.

the la _mbs fingers twitch. her bowstring is pulled taunt and she feels cold, icy rage. cheating death earns her ire. cheating death earns wolf's wrath. death must come at the perfect moment, when the prey is cornered and life can be pulled out like a heart, or like a crow pecking out eyes._

 _the son of shurima does not look away from the sun. his armour is bright and his features are impressive, but at his feet, around the corner, behind him, he knows._

 _( bite the bird! rip the wings! gullet! gullet!_ )


	5. night hunter

like a black veil she would not wear, death followed her.

she mourned. she never moved on. every bolt is kissed with fury and she delivers death as the lamb does. shauna vayne is without mercy - yet her teeth are not sharp like the wolf's, no matter how much silver she may bite.

her own hunt is one they witness, at times. death that they catch the scent of, like carrion on the wind - and when they find her mark, they shadow her deeds, watch her press knives into the throats of mages and kill a craft long meant to be dead.

( _hunter, hunted!_ )

( _not yet - but one day._ )

when they show themselves to mortals, drift in on winds that crawls up the spine and stills time to allow life and death to brush one another, it is believed that the first one of the duo they see is the one who will kill them.

for peace, the lamb bows before you. for cruelty, the wolf snarls at your ankles. she looks up, with a knee on a fresh corpse's throat, and sees both.

magic is cruel. magic claims and steals and robs and destroys. magic taints. forces of death are not magic. logically, spirits are not forces of magic, merely tools that can be used.

she still draws a bolt, instinctively, and hangs her wrist at her side.

What folly it is to snatch our marks, breathes from the lamb. they cannot see her eyes behind crimson glass ( _ah! rose-tint!_ ) but know she does not blink. she does not speak, merely rises from the still-warm body. it will be ash, should someone find it.

the hunter leaves. death has always haunted her, and arrows drawn at her back will not hinder her.

( _we should join her hunt!_ )

( _but she would not share, wolf._ )

her task will end. and theirs shall continue.


	6. starchild

_why?_

they do not chase this one. her heart is cased in glass yet it does not fear its own fragility, carefully painted in hues of violet and peach. the wolf hungers, but he remains low, dancing around the heels of the lamb. the lamb watches her -

prey? target? the lamb does not hunt for her own hunger. that is the wolf, whose jaws ache when he has not eaten in some time, who would rip his marks to meat and blood had he the claws to do so. but the lamb does hunt, and she sings it as her duty.

so she questions the starchild - _why?_

the starchild preserves life, of course. the kindred understand this act - it is of kindness, it is of mercy, it is of pity. she will bring her magic over open wounds and keep the blood inside, lest the wolf catches scent. she cradles injured souls in her lap and pets them with her hands, soft like the lamb's own fur. she does not fight for the everlasting presence of life, merely its preservation.

for all of their might, the kindred do not comprehend life as the starchild does. when you exist only as beings of death, the air remains stale.

her name is soraka. she leans back against the tree, her hands cradling her staff to her bosom. she looks up at the trees above them, where lanterns of an ionian festival remain. there are lightning bugs. she appears in thought.

they question her life, and she accepts their death. they ask why. why preserve when you understand where your saved souls will go, starchild?

then, she looks at them.

 _i understand,_ she smiles. _when all you have is a shovel, everything will look like a grave._

the lamb's bow is made of moonbone and ash. it is cold to the touch, and yet is illuminated like light. yet, in their passing moment, the kindred understand.

soraka kneels down. she matches the height of the wolf now, and she moves her hand to the earth beneath the tree. she pats it.

 _i would rather grow flowers._

yes. the kindred understand.


	7. crimson reaper

ok so you may have seen this fic before - it was called 'an eternity' and it was a drabble. after a while i've realized this could have fit into this series a bit better than just being standalone, BUT given it wasn't written in this series' style, it DOES feel a little different compared to how the other chapters are. i do apologize for that! please let me know if it feels strange at all. i can rewrite it.

* * *

so it shall be the wolf he sees - teeth that are sharper than any steel and a mouth hungrier than any beast.

death sweeps over like a fog on the ocean, or the mist of a cold harrowing - it is a veil that finds a moment in time to remind oneself of what awaits them, be it an arrow's eye or the hungry jaws of a wolf. it wraps over his wrists and keeps him still, pulse paused and crushed together. bladimir, in a single moment, feels -

not fear, not fright, not acceptance, not defiance, but a sudden awareness, an awakening, a moment of reality. he stares at masks that merge together, split apart and dance in moonlight dyed red. white fur, black fur, both wet with blood. what is it that bleeds upon the lamb? is it the wolf's open mouth, teeth slick with gore from his most recent hunt? it is a dark red, white and cherry, the colour of mourning and the colour of passion.

a passionate kill - he stares at the two avatars of death, and one steps forward, taunting.

 _you think you will live forever with your blood magic? the Kindred are the only eternal! what are you to think you could outlive the constant! your arrogance enrages me!_

then the wolf shall devour his body - the blood that rests inside him will be preserved as all else, blessed with an immortality that cannot be simply banished away. it is not him, yet is it also him; an existence through life's virtue. vladimir is not a virtuous man, neither is he holy, but he holds a gift of life's essence.

blood is what continues our existence - that what we must gorge ourselves upon to prolong life, stain our teeth with a crimson and drool down our mouths a sanguine beauty. he thinks upon his death, and how it must come bloody, and how it must come violent.

(did you know he doesn't _want_ to pass it on? he will discover he is not the only one left, and still be as greedy as he wishes.

would he burn his body? but knowledge is beyond all importance.

he hungers for flesh, he hungers to kill, but he also hungers for knowledge. would he deny the privilege of secret magic out of spite for his own existence?

vladimir turns and dances with the wolf, a spirit that chases his heels in the lamb's respite.

eternity is constant, yet also, eternity is but a moment - long enough for one good joke.


	8. deceiver

the matron is deathless.

her name was not emilie leblanc when she was born. the kindred do not care for the truth of your names, for all names fade within their time. but they know, and remember, this one's original name. how she shed her skin and became a different person by defying her fate.

the lives the hunted lead are their lives. though the kindred provide judgement, they do not hold sway over the affairs one engages with before they must meet them. the world is a big place - larger than it used to be.

but the matron defied fate. she became a different woman. a different ruler. what started as a second chance at a life she wanted became a political empire of new lies, new powers, new faces. emilie leblanc fled her grave when she fled the old kingdoms.

the lamb clenches her bow. the wolf breathes audibly.

the heel of noxus is a stiletto. it is black, it is four inches tall. empires and their failures do not shock the avatars of death. but the notches in the arrows keep missing the trickster woman. she is far above them on her golden throne -

 _is she a spirit?!_

 _were she, she would still fall limp._

\- yet not beyond their cold, cold, cold grasp.

their masks stare at the matron in her dreams. they speak in unison. the taunting of the wolf, and the truth of the lamb. _the matron is a coward! the black rose is wilting. she will not escape us any longer!_

classic misdirection. looks can be deceiving. would i lie?

emilie leblanc wakes every day to a bed of roses, entangled with arrowheads. she will evade the trail of death once more.


End file.
